Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and 1st Earl of MontgomeryKG (10 October 1584[1] – 23 January 1650) was an English courtier and politician active during the reigns of James I and Charles I.[1][2][3] Philip and his older brother William were the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works was dedicated in 1623.

Montgomery took a keen interest in English colonial ventures, which were just taking off at this time, and was involved with several joint stock companies: he became a member of the council of the Virginia Company in 1612; was one of the original incorporators of the Northwest Passage Company in 1612; and became a member of the Honourable East India Company in 1614.

Montgomery continued to be interested in colonial ventures under Charles I. He was an incorporator of the Guiana Company in 1626. In 1628, he received a grant of the islands of Trinidad, Tobago and Barbados.

Pembroke maintained a large of household of 80 at his home in London, and an even larger staff of over 150 at Wilton House, his family's ancestral seat in Wiltshire. Throughout the 1630s, Pembroke entertained Charles I at Wilton House for a hunting expedition every year. Charles encouraged Pembroke to rebuild Wilton House in the Palladian style, recommending Inigo Jones for the job (Salomon de Caus performed the work when Jones proved to be unavailable, while his brother, Isaac de Caus, designed a variety of formal and informal gardens for the property).

Pembroke was a great fan of painting and a member of the Whitehall group. He amassed a large art collection and was patron of Anthony van Dyck. This love of painting was shared with Charles I: in 1637, when Pope Urban VIII sent Charles a large shipment of paintings, Pembroke was one of a select group invited by Charles to join him in opening the cases (the group also included Henrietta Maria, Inigo Jones, and Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland). Pembroke also promoted the artistic career of his page, Richard Gibson, who became a successful portrait miniaturist.

Pembroke was also an active patron of literature, receiving the dedication of over forty books during his lifetime, beginning with the dedication of the English edition of Amadis de Gaula in 1619. His most famous dedication was that of Shakespeare's first folio, which was dedicated to Philip and his elder brother. Pembroke was also notably the patron of Philip Massinger and of Pembroke's relative George Herbert (in 1630 he intervened with Charles to have George Herbert appointed to a rectory in Wiltshire).

Given this religious inclination, Pembroke was sympathetic to the Covenanters during the Bishops' Wars and strongly favoured peace. Pembroke served as Charles' commissioner during the negotiations with the Scots at Berwick and Ripon, where several of the Scots, notably the Earl of Rothes, believed that Pembroke was secretly in favour of the Scottish position. Pembroke, however, continued to profess his loyalty to Charles, though, along with Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland and William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, he urged the king to accept the Scots' terms. The king, however, ordered Pembroke to return to London to begin raising funds for further war with the Scots.

Pembroke's extensive land holdings enabled him to exercise considerable influence during the elections to the Short and LongParliaments, with approximately a dozen members of the House of Commons owing their elections to his patronage. These men did not seem to constitute a Pembroke faction in the Commons, though there is some indication that he patronized men known to be opponents of Charles' policy of Thorough.

During the politics of the 1640s, Pembroke was initially associated with the group of lords headed by William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele and Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, which supported the Self-denying Ordinance and the creation of the New Model Army in 1645. By mid-1646, however, Pembroke was distancing himself from this group and became one of the most outspoken opponents of the New Model Army, favouring its immediate disbandment. Following anti-New Model Army riots in London in July 1647, Pembroke refused to join the Saye-Northumberland group, who left the capital and joined the army at this time. Pembroke quickly changed his tune in August, however, when the New Model Army marched into London: he claimed that he had previously been acting under duress and that he had always been a supporter of the New Model Army.

Following Laud's arrest in 1641, the University of Oxford elected Pembroke to replace him as chancellor. (Pembroke, who was at the time allied with Saye, nominated Saye to replace him as high steward when he left the post to take up the chancellorship.) When royalist forces took Oxford, they removed Pembroke, installing the marquess of Hertford in his place, but, after Parliament took Oxford, it had Pembroke re-installed as chancellor in 1647 and ordered him to reform the university. The visitors of the university began this work under the direction of a committee of both houses chaired by Pembroke. They ordered all university officers to take the Solemn League and Covenant, and when the heads of houses complained, Pembroke summoned them to the committee and berated them. In February 1648, he installed a new vice-chancellor and replaced many of the heads of houses, and then, in March, Parliament ordered him to take up his office in person, so he travelled to Oxford and presided over the Convocation, thus putting an end to resistance to the reforms. However, Pembroke, although a patron of literature, was far from a man of letters himself and thus became the subject of bitter satires written by royalists during this period.

Pembroke believed that the king was crucial to any settlement of hostilities between king and Parliament, and he was thus vehemently opposed to the Vote of No Addresses in 1647–48, refusing to leave Wilton House (where he was attending to rebuilding in the wake of a 1647 fire) to attend the debate in the House of Lords. In July 1648, Pembroke voted that James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, should be declared a traitor for leading Scottish forces into England and also sought to have royalists who aided Hamilton declared traitors. In July 1648, Pembroke again attended negotiations with the king, this time pursuant to the Treaty of Newport.

These negotiations came to an abrupt halt with Pride's Purge of December 1648. In the wake of the purge, Pembroke and several of the other parliamentary commissioners negotiating at Newport sent a deputation to Thomas Fairfax, assuring him that they continued to support the army. However, they continued to seek a deal with the king. Thus, in late December 1648, Pembroke joined a deputation led by Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh, asking the Army Council to accept a deal whereby Charles would lose his negative voice and agree to not attempt to restore episcopal lands which had been alienated by Parliament.

The Army Council rejected this proposal but wished to continue to have good relations with Pembroke and the Army Council soon agreed to let the Rump Parliament name Pembroke constable of Windsor Castle (the House of Lords had been trying to appoint Pembroke to the position since July but had not yet received the support of the House of Commons), making him essentially the king's jailer. Pembroke appointed Bulstrode Whitelocke as his deputy.

In January 1649, Pembroke was appointed to the High Court of Justice established by the Rump Parliament to try Charles I on charges of high treason. Pembroke refused to participate, however, though he agreed not to speak out against executing the king.

In February, following the execution of the king, in February, the Rump appointed Pembroke to the English Council of State. Since the House of Lords had been abolished in the wake of Charles' execution, Pembroke had to stand for election to Parliament: he was returned as member for Berkshire in April 1649.

In May 1649, Pembroke fell ill and spent the rest of 1649 bedridden. He died in his chambers in Whitehall, Westminster on 23 January 1650.

Pembroke's body was embalmed and transported to Salisbury to be buried in Salisbury Cathedral. The English Council of State ordered all members of Barebone's Parliament to accompany his cortège for 2 or 3 miles on its journey out of London.

His grandson Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke, was a homicidal maniac; it has been suggested that the strain of mental instability was inherited from his grandfather, who was also prone to making sudden and violent assaults.[4]